A genizah (or geniza; Hebrew: גניזה "storage"; plural: genizot or genizoth or genizahs) is the store-room or depository in a Jewish synagogue (or cemetery), usually specifically for worn-out Hebrew-language books and papers on religious topics that were stored there before they could receive a proper cemetery burial, as being forbidden to throw away writings containing the name of G-d (even personal letters and legal contracts could open with an invocation of G-d). The word genizah come from the Hebrew root g-n-z, which means hiding, and originally meant "to hide" or "to put away". Later, it became a noun for a place where one put things, and is perhaps best translated as "archive" or "repository".
In practice, genizot also contained writings of a secular nature, with or without the customary opening invocation, and also contained writings in other Jewish languages that use the Hebrew alphabet (Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Persian, Judeo-Spanish, Yiddish).
This custom also included the periodic solemn gathering of the contents of the geniza, which were then buried in the cemetery or "bet ḥayyim." Synagogues in Jerusalem buried the contents of their genizot every seventh year, as well as during a year of drought, believing that this would bring rain. This custom is associated with the far older practice of burying a great or good man with a "sefer" which has become "pasul" (unfit for use through illegibility or old age). In Morocco, in Algiers, in Turkey, and even in Egypt, such paper-interments had been practiced.
Talmudic references
The Talmud (Tractate Shabbat 115a) directs that holy writings in other than the Hebrew language require "genizah," that is, preservation. In Pesachim 118b, "bet genizah" is equivalated to "treasury." In Pesachim 56a Hezekiah hides ("ganaz") a medical work; in Shabbat 115a R. Gamaliel orders that the Targum to the Book of Job should be hidden ("yigganez") under the "nidbak" (layer of stones). In Shabbat 30b, there is a reference to those rabbis who sought to categorize the books of Ecclesiastes and Proverbs as heretical; this occurred before the canonization of the Hebrew Bible, when disputes flared over which books should be considered Biblical. The same thing occurs in Shabbat 13b in regard to the Book of Ezekiel, and in Pesachim 62 in regard to the Book of Genealogies.
Historical use
In medieval times, Hebrew scraps and papers that were relegated to the genizah were known as shemot or "names," because their sanctity and consequent claim to preservation were held to depend on their containing the "names" of G-d. In addition to papers, objects connected with the ritual, such as tzitzit, lulavim, and sprigs of myrtle, are similarly stored.
According to folklore, these scraps were used to hide the famed Golem of Prague, whose body is claimed to lie in the genizah of the Altneushul in Prague
The Cairo Geniza, which was discovered in 1864 in old Cairo, had an accumulation of almost 280,000 Jewish manuscript fragments, which were written from about 870 to the 19th century. These materials were important for reconstructing the religious, social and economic history of Jews, especially in the middle ages.
Sources:
Princeton University Geniza Project http://www.princeton.edu/~geniza/
http://jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=139&letter=G&search=Genizah
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